1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to a tobacco harvester for automatically harvesting only tobacco leaves, and more particularly to a tobacco harvester in which leaf stripping claws of leaf stripping chains descend along a stem of a tobacco plant to strip down the tobacco leaves and transporting conveyors transport the tobacco leaves to a storage section.
2. Description of the Prior Art
In a conventional tobacco harvesting method, only tobacco leaves are harvested with stems of a tobacco plant being left as they are. Many types of such automatic tobacco harvesters are well known and an exemplary one of the tobacco harvesters comprises a movable main body, a pair of leaf stripping chains arranged on right and left sides of the main body, which travel in the direction parallel to traveling direction of the main body, and a plurality of leaf stripping claws projecting from the leaf stripping chains.
The leaf stripping chains have the same traveling velocity as that of the main body and travel in the opposite direction to that of the main body. Therefore, when a tobacco plant passes between the leaf stripping chains, the leaf stripping chains and leaf stripping claws relatively stop with respect to the tobacco stems in the direction that the main body travels.
Further, the leaf stripping chains are mounted so as to be inclined with a front portion thereof being higher than a rear portion thereof, which means an end of the leaf stripping chains on a front portion side of the main body is higher than the other end thereof. As a result, the leaf stripping claws attached to the leaf stripping chains descend along the stem of the tobacco plant, which permits only tobacco leaves to be separated from the stem. The tobacco harvesters as described above are disclosed in Japanese patent applications of which numbers Kokai Heisei 3-80015 and Kokai Heisei 3-251113.